On this week's Fox News Sunday -- even though Brit Hume ignored the fact that Republicans have been forcing this hostage taking on raising the debt ceiling and that these radical Republican freshmen are out there denying that defaulting on our debt would be bad for the economy and are openly cheering for it instead -- even Hume had to admit that Republicans would be blamed if they forced a government shutdown.

I think the only reason more people aren't upset about what they're doing now is they don't understand what raising the debt ceiling is or how dangerous and irresponsible they've been with using it as a political weapon. I blame our lousy media in America for allowing these "tea partiers" to first of all pretend they're something other than Republicans, and then for allowing them to come on the air and spout nonsense with little or no challenge to their talking points.

Here's the latest on where this mess is now. It looks like the big questions are going to be where are these cuts they're talking about going to come from, like potentially drawing down in Afghanistan and Iraq and whether the Republicans are going to try to force us to go through this all over again before the next election.

WALLACE: And I have to, Brit, the most interesting aspect both from Boehner and Geithner, was that neither of them was willing to put the final nail in the coffin the grand bargain. Geithner left it open. And Boehner, when I offered it to him, said my deal, his deal, prior to the president demanding $400 billion more, is still on the table. Do you take that seriously?

HUME: I do. But I think it is a practical matter. I think they both are willing, but I think the obstacles to it are too great and time is too short for them to get there. I just think it is too much.

First of all, the components of it are so numerous and the amount of legislating that needs to be done to get it in place is so extensive that I just don't think it is feasible to pass it in time. We are going to need to do something ahead of that, if we can ever get that done. The other thing that is striking about this is, you know we have the ratings agencies out there issuing these dire warnings and all of this. Remember, now, what are talking about here is to enact something that would keep the government going for a while. And there are going to be plenty more bites at this apple. I mean, the Senate never passed anything. There is no budget. And there will be another day of reckoning down the road. I mean, this is simply a measure to keep the government open for a while. But there is just no real budget.

I mean, we have a long way to go and we're going to be fighting this fight, it seems to me, again and again, which is why I think House Republicans would be wise to say let's take what we can get on this and go along with our leader. The only worry I have for the Republicans-or the thing I think they should be worried about-is you pass this short-term, you know, six months or so, uh, bill, that keeps the government going. And with it a batch of spending cuts. And it gets rejected by that Senate and or vetoed by the president and we have this shutdown. Even though the Senate has never passed anything; the president hasn't proposed anything specific that we can see. And the House will have acted, be the only body that really has acted. And still it is possible, it is the scenario we saw back during the Clinton years, it plays out again, for the Republicans to get all the blame.

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